USTR Jamieson Greer, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Dr. Mehmet Oz

19:00Margaret Brennan:Good morning to you. Good morning, Ms. Brennan. You were just here in Washington negotiating. And while the talks are officially continuing, you left town without a deal and you left town with now what is a 35 percent tariff on goods. How much of a setback was the president's decision to do that while you are still at the table? So we were obviously disappointed by that decision. We believe there's a great deal of common ground between the United States and Canada in terms of building two strong economies that work well together. That's been the history of the 40-year free trade agreement that goes back to President Reagan.

19:41We were pleased the United States is respecting the terms of the USMCA agreement. That's vital, we think, to the cost of living and affordability, certainly in the United States. It's true in Canada as well. So we're going to continue to do the work. We left always with a better understanding of the American concerns in the trading relationship. Ambassador Greer, Secretary Lutnik engage with us in constructive, cordial conversations. So we're prepared to stick around and do the work needed. We think, Ms. Brennan, that the economies of both countries are strengthened when we do things together.

20:25The trading relationship between Canada and the United States is unlike other partners. One description which I thought was very apt, we don't sell things to each other as much as we build things together. And that's why it's difficult in this relationship when so much is integrated. But we remain very optimistic.

20:45Margaret Brennan:But you heard Ambassador Greer say Canada, because Canada retaliated to the initial tariffs all the way back in April when Prime Minister Trudeau was in office, you're paying the price now, even though you have a new government in place. If that's the issue, why not make that concession and pull back? So Prime Minister Carney, our new prime minister, has, we think, built a very businesslike, respectful relationship with President Trump. We think that's obviously very important to Canada and we think to the United States. We're dealing with, take, for example, the steel sector. in Canada. It's a strategic importance to national security in Canada, as it is for President Trump and the American economy.

21:34We now have a situation where there's a 50 % tariff. We're the biggest steel export market for the United States. We have a 25 % tariff. There's a 50 % tariff when we want to sell something into the United States. So effectively, we're blocked from doing that but the national security interest of canada requires that we have a viable steel and aluminum sector and my conversations with secretary lutnik and others are that therein lies an example where if we do the right work together we have miss brennan the toughest rules of any country dealing with chinese dumping into canada we have melt and pour tracing so that products coming from other countries with Chinese steel can't be dumped into the Canadian market.

22:19So we're looking and advancing ideas where we can do that work with the United States at the same time, ensuring that our economy continues to have sectors vital to the economic future of Canada. But that's not in contradiction to President Trump's national security objectives in the United States, of course.

22:37Margaret Brennan:Well, I want to talk to you more about this idea of the so-called fortress North America to take on China and some of the specifics of the dispute. On the other side of this commercial break, please stay with us. We'll have more questions for Minister LeBlanc shortly. We'll see you in a moment. And we'll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation, including an interview with the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmed Oz, and the Democratic governor of the state of New Mexico, Michelle Luan Grisham, will join us. Stay with us.

23:32Margaret Brennan:Welcome back to Face the Nation. We return to our conversation with the Canadian Minister for U.S.-Canada Trade, Dominic LeBlanc. Minister, we were just talking about some of the sectoral tariffs, the metals. American automakers, GM, Ford, Stellantis, they have all said that these tariffs are hurting their profits. The 50 percent metal tariffs, which use Canadian aluminum, the secretary of the Treasury was talking about those just the other day. They're seeing the impact here in the United States, a bit of a backfire in some ways. Do you see room for maneuver on these? Are they willing to negotiate with you on those tariffs?

24:17Ms. Brennan, we hope so. And as I say, we're encouraged by the conversations with Secretary Lutnik and Ambassador Greer, but we're not yet where we need to go to get the deal that's in the best interest of the two economies. But your example is a good one. Canadian aluminum companies massively supply the American market. And by putting a 50 % tariff on aluminum from Canada, you've increased the price of a whole series of goods. The automobile sector, again, is an example where there's been deep integration. We're the biggest customer of US-made automobiles, heavily, heavily importing into Canada light and heavy-duty trucks.

25:0150 % of the cars that we finish in Canada and sell to the United States are made up of American parts. So therein lies a perfect example where instead of tariffing one another or President Trump for his national security reasons under his Section 232 tariffs wants to have a strong domestic steel, aluminum, automobile sector, well, so does Canada. And we understand and respect totally the president's view in terms of the national security interest. In fact, we share it. And what we've said to our American counterparts is how can we structure the right agreement where we can both continue to supply one another in a reliable, cost effective way that preserves jobs essential to the American economy?

25:49But the same thing's true, obviously, in Canada as well.

25:52Margaret Brennan:Well, are there any plans for the two leaders to speak? I saw President Trump said your prime minister called him Thursday and they just never connected. I mean, are tensions that high? And given the changing justification for the tariffs, do you really feel like you're negotiating with the other side in good faith? Sure, we do. Of course we do. As I say, the conversations have been informative, constructive and cordial. I would expect the prime minister will have a conversation with the president over the next number of days. That's certainly my plan, again, with Secretary Lutnik, recognizing that we think there is an option of striking a deal that will bring down some of these tariffs, provide greater certainty to investment.

26:40We, Ms. Brennan, we passed in Canada our version of the president's one big, beautiful bill. It's called the One Canadian Economy Act, which we think will unlock up to$500 billion of investment in Canada for things like pipelines, port infrastructure, mines, all of which offer huge opportunities to American businesses as well. So we think there's a great deal to work on together.

27:05Margaret Brennan:All right, Minister, we'll see if you can get one. Change is coming for the country's Medicaid system as part of the enactment of the big, beautiful bill. To help us understand what's ahead, we turn now to the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Good morning. Welcome to Face the Nation. Thank you. You've got a lot of work ahead. I want to start on drug costs. The president put this 25 percent tariff on India, big drug producer. The president's trade deal with the EU puts a 15 % tariff on imported medicines from Europe. How do you stop the drug makers from passing along those costs to people on Medicare and Medicaid?

27:46Well, the president's letter on Thursday for most favored nation pricing is a good example of that. And he's been working on this tirelessly since the first administration. And just to put this in context for many of the viewers, about two-thirds of bankruptcies in America are caused by health care expenses. About a third of people, when they go to the pharmacy, they leave empty-handed. They can't afford the medication. So the president has said, enough global freeloading. We've been covering much of the development costs for new drugs to cure cancer, lots of other illnesses that are life-threatening.

28:16It isn't time for the American public to understand that we should not be paying three times more for the exact same medication in the same box, made in the same factory. So the president is saying, equalize it out. Let's use a model that's worked, for example, for external threats. That's what NATO did. Everyone has to pay a little more. We'll pay extra, too. But we won't pay a lot more than everybody else. So they actually have to raise their contributions, in this case, to an internal threat, which is illness. We'll pay a little less in America. That way more Americans can afford these medications.

28:45And it's a fair system for the entire globe.

28:47Margaret Brennan:So this was declared in these letters that were sent out to 17 pharmaceutical companies this past week. And it calls for extending that to Medicaid drug prices. Is that intended to offset what will be cuts to Medicaid? And do you know if the companies are actually going to follow through on this? How do you actually strong arm them into doing it? We'll just get the numbers correct. We're putting$200 billion more in the Medicaid. So we're actually investing in Medicaid. At a time when costs are going up. Costs are going up, but there's been a 50 % increase in the cost of Medicaid over the last five years.

29:20So I'm trying to save this beautiful program, this noble effort to help folks, giving them a hand up. And as you probably gather, if Medicaid isn't able to take care of the people for whom it was designed, the young children, the dawn of their life, those who are the twilight of their life, the seniors, and those who are disabled living in the shadows, as Hubert Humphrey said, then we're not satisfying the fundamental obligation of a moral government. And this president has said over and over that he believes that it is the wise thing and the noble thing to help those who are vulnerable. and every great society does that, we're going to as well.

29:52So we're going to invest in Medicaid as it's required, but we want an appropriate return on that investment. One thing that Medicaid patients should not face are drug prices they can't afford. Right.

30:00Margaret Brennan:How do you enforce this? Well, the pharmaceutical companies, if you sit them down quietly, Margaret, and we've done that and say, you went into this business at some point because you cared about people. I know there's many out there shaking their heads, but that is actually the truth. People go into healthcare, whether they're pharmaceutical companies or insurance companies or the PBMs or anybody in the space. The CMS, the most impressive thing to me in my new task, and the president has appointed me to, is the remarkable quality of the people within the organization. Just unbelievably talented.

30:27They went into this job because they care about health care and about people. Somewhere along the lines, people forget. They put numbers ahead of patients. And when that happens, then you start running the problems. We went to the pharmaceutical companies, and we said, you appreciate this is not a fair system. We should not be paying more in America, three times more, for your products than you charge in Europe. They get the joke. They understand the reality. of this problem. They're engaging with us. We're in the middle of those negotiations. The president has a unique power to convene. We've done it with dealing with prior authorization, this heinous process where patients feel like they're trying to get care from a doctor and everything's being done, except all of a sudden the arm of insurance comes in and stops the whole process for unknown reasons for weeks, sometimes months.

31:08The insurance companies representing 80 % of the American public got together and they said, because we pushed them, we're going to deal with this. We can do the same, I believe, with the pharmaceutical industry with most favored nation pricing.

31:19Margaret Brennan:Let me ask you about the changes that are coming because of this new law to Medicaid, which is jointly administered between the feds and the states. There are major reductions to federal health care spending here. One of the changes are these work requirements. It's about 20 hours a week, volunteer or work, to qualify for health care. What is the guidance you are giving to states on how to implement this? Because in this economy, things are more complicated. Uber driver, independent contractor. How do they show they work their 20 hours a week? Last weekend, I was at the National Governors Association with Secretary Kennedy, who has been a big advocate of work as well.

31:59Every Democratic president and Republican president has said that the foundation of a healthy welfare system, of a social system of support is work. Right.

32:09Margaret Brennan:But I'm asking how you actually implement that and register it so that people who are working do qualify and they don't get caught up in paperwork because they didn't file something on time. As long as we're OK that people should work and would want to work. And it's not just work. It's community engagement. They can go get educated. They can take care of family members. They can contribute in some other ways. But work's a great way of doing it and gets you out of poverty if you can find jobs and elevate yourself. There have been efforts to do this in the past, but they haven't been able to achieve what we can achieve.

32:36because we have technologies now and we've invested already, as soon as the bill was signed, began pilots to try to demonstrate that we can actually do this correctly. We have pilots now in Louisiana and in Arizona. In both cases, within seven minutes, you can click on where you're working. You mentioned Uber, your Uber driver. You click that button on your phone. It just takes you to your payroll provider. Let's say it's ADP. We then ask your permission. Can we connect with this payroll provider to demonstrate what you've actually been able to work and earn over the past month? This also, by the way, confirms your eligibility.

33:05But there's a bigger benefit here. Once you do that, you're in, you're done. However, what if we take one step further, Margaret? What if we go beyond just proving that you tried to work to actually say, you know what? You didn't work enough, but we can actually help you by connecting you to your employment office.

33:19Margaret Brennan:So you're still figuring out the technology. But isn't there an end of December deadline for a lot of these things to be figured out? And how do you make sure that people don't get kicked off? Because in the state of Georgia, which already had work requirements, they have really struggled to make this work. Well, a couple of things. It's not the end of December. It's the end of December a year from now. And Georgia's apples and oranges. Georgia had a program only for people under the poverty level. And for those people, if they wanted, they could elect to come into a system to help them get jobs.

33:46There have been 50 ,000 reduction in headcount of uninsured people in the overall program in the last five years. Overall, Georgia, two million less uninsured people. So Georgia's using a lot of tactics and they're going in the right direction. I would argue that if you have confidence in the American people and their desire to take the offer to try to get a job, if we challenge you to that. And remember, if you're an able-bodied person on Medicaid, you're spending 6.1 hours watching television or leisure time. So you don't want that.

34:16Margaret Brennan:KFF Health Policy found 92 % of adult Medicaid recipients already are working or they have the carve out because they have to have caregivers or they have to do other things. They're fine. All they have to do is there'll be a simple app. If you've already carved out, that's super simple. If you're supposed to be able-bodied and you're supposed to be working, we want to help connect you to the job market and get you into work. We have twice as many jobs available in America as people who seem to want them. The foundation of work is not just about fulfilling eligibility. The goal of health care insurance is to catalyze action in the right direction, to get you healthier, to give you agency over your future so you recognize you matter.

34:52Sure. And you should have a job there for it to go out and change the world.

34:55Margaret Brennan:So there's a drug addiction problem in this country. How are those changes going to impact people who are on Medicaid in states like Kentucky, in states like West Virginia? In many instances, they're carve-outs for folks who have substance use disorder problems. How do they prove that? Is this in the app? Yes, it'll be in the app. The app, again, this is being developed by the United States Digital Service, led by Amy Gleason, who is a wonderful technologist. She and I were with the president and Secretary Kennedy and the head of the czar for AI in this country on Wednesday talking about overall how we're going to change the use of health technology in America.

35:29We've got to get into 2025 with health technology, as is true in every other sector. If you're watching the show right now, you could also have been streaming media. You could take an Uber somewhere, the ride share. You could do an Airbnb. Technology should make the system more efficient. We should have confidence that will also allow us to do what we all agree is possible. If the whole challenge to a work requirement is that you don't have confidence in our ability to accomplish it, that's a separate question. Because I do have confidence in the American people, and we have confidence we can pull this off.

35:57Look at the passport system, Margaret. Right now, you can go and get a passport in two weeks without having to go to the post office, send pictures, and all that's gone. It's fixable. Let's use technology.

36:07Margaret Brennan:I'm still confused on how someone who is in the throes of substance abuse is going to use an app to say I'm in the throes of substance abuse every week to file online. When they go in to get their help for their substance use treatment, assuming they're going for help on that, they can also get enrolled and those requirements can be fulfilled. We want to talk to them in as many ways as possible. It's not going to happen just because we put an app out there. You have social workers and other folk elements who care a lot about this population who are coming together. But they have to have some mechanism to report back that just has not been done well.

36:39Margaret Brennan:Well, and this is incredibly detailed. And that's why we wanted to have you on. I have so many more questions for you on rural hospitals and some of the other criticisms. I have to leave it there for now. But thank you, Dr. Oz. Can I give you 30 seconds on rural hospitals? Because this is important. You have 7 % of Medicaid money going to rural hospitals. We're putting$50 billion. The president wants this. The Congress wants this. There are a lot of questions about how you're going to dole that out and whether you have already made promises. Do you have any specifics for us? Yes. It's going to be, they'll get the applications in early September.

37:10Remember, the money is designed to help you with workforce development, right-sizing the system, and using technology to provide things like telehealth that can change the world. But imagine if we can change the way we think about the delivery of health and make it more about getting people healthy so it can thrive and flourish and be fully present in their own lives and as Americans.

37:28Margaret Brennan:Dr. Oz, we'll leave it there. We'll be back in a moment. We turn now to New Mexico's Democratic Governor, Michelle Luan Grisham. She joins us from Santa Fe. Governor, two out of five New Mexicans are on Medicaid. You've got a lot of rural hospitals. Have you figured out how to implement everything Dr. Oz just laid out? Absolutely not. There is no real way to implement this. It's more paperwork for everyone. It's more paperwork for federal government, for state governments, for county governments, for local hospitals, for independent providers. And you know what Americans really hate, Margaret?

38:04When you go to your primary care physician and you spend 20 minutes sitting at a chair, not even on the exam table, while they are inputting data into a computer. So this doesn't make any sense. We should be a society and a country that is connecting people to health care providers. I think the one thing that Dr. Oz represents that's a fair representation is we should be healthier as Americans. All right. that we need to be moving out of poverty. We need drug prices. We should talk about that to come down. So go after insurance companies, do manufacturing here, make sure we can negotiate fair prices, let states do that, because I guarantee you we'll do a better job than the federal government.

38:47And lastly, get people early, easy access. Today, more than half or about half our small businesses don't even offer health care coverage. So you can get a job, but now what? Yeah.

39:02Margaret Brennan:Well, you said, though, in your state, because as a governor, you're going to have to figure this out. You have reserved cash from some oil and gas revenues, as I understand it, that have been put aside. Doesn't that show it is possible for the federal government to shift more responsibility back to the states? That's the argument conservatives are making. They are. And it's temporary. There is no way any state, including this one, which, frankly, I am really proud of. We are in really good financial shape. That takes planning and effort. You know, our job projections continue to be met and exceed, unlike the federal jobs report, which is going in the opposite direction.

39:46So I don't know where all these jobs are going to be in this anemic economy. I mean, it's so bad. The last time it was this bad, I was in college. And let me tell you, that was a very long time ago. And so, yes, temporarily we can do that, but you can't do it over the long haul. The lost minimally to New Mexico over less than a decade is between 12 and 13 billion dollars. And when, not if, rural hospitals and local providers close their doors, I can do this better than any other state. The last governor completely canceled behavioral health. Yeah. Six years later, we are still reeling from trying to rebuild.

40:34We put a billion dollars into behavioral health just this last legislative session. It is not so easy to rebuild something out of nothing.

40:43Margaret Brennan:Well, the$50 billion rural health care fund under this Republican law is supposed to give people, states like yours, the ability to come and say, we need this extra cash. Are you going to have to ask for that? I'm going to ask for every dollar the federal government has put aside anywhere that benefits a New Mexican. So you got$50 billion. That's$1 billion for each state, if it was even. Do you know how much money it would take to shore up rural hospitals? More than a billion. And to put that in perspective, let me do this. It's a billion just for behavioral health. It's a billion plus just to keep people's coverage.

41:24It's another billion for prescription drugs. It's a billion dollars for rural provider delivery investments. And that's only 50 hospitals. You have hundreds of hospitals, hundreds, 400 rural hospitals across America that will shutter. So that's the number. And it is we are. How do we pick these rural hospitals? And if you pick a southeastern rural hospital in New Mexico, what about the rural hospital in western New Mexico? Economies fail. People have to move away. You don't have any OBGYN care. That whole area collapses and they are reducing rural health care delivery by about one hundred and thirty four billion.

42:09So the 50 billion is just to make someone somewhere feel like they recognize that this is a disaster. Nine hundred billion dollars out of Medicaid is catastrophic. Straight up.

42:25Margaret Brennan:Governor, we ran through a lot of material here. I have more questions for you. But very quickly, can you tell me, you deployed the National Guard to counter unrest in New Mexico. How's that different from what the president did in California? Well, they're not policing. They're doing the back end work so that trained community policing and members of that training, right, those local police officers, they're on the streets. What we have in this country is a shortage of police officers. What I have in New Mexico is a partnership. So they're doing all of the, they answer all of the emergency calls.

43:05They handle all the traffic clearance when we've got a crash. And it is working. We're beginning to see more productive fentanyl, drug dealing, high end arrests than we did without the guard. And I'm really proud of that work. This is about partnering and leveraging. not about indiscriminately going after individuals who have not committed serious crimes.

43:30Margaret Brennan:Thank you for your time today. You're welcome, Margaret. We turn now to the war between Israel and Hamas. Our Deborah Pata went with the Israel Defense Forces into Gaza last week, a rare visit for journalists. She filed this report. Hunger has forced an impossible choice in Gaza, risked gunfire or starvation. They shoot constantly, said this teenager. This boy was standing next to us and he was killed. Hundreds have been killed near the U.S.-funded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid hubs, controlled by the Israeli Defense Forces, which denies it fires on desperate crowds. But under global pressure, the IDF allowed more U.N.

44:16supplies in this past week and took us to an aid collection point just inside Gaza to prove they are not deliberately starving Palestinians. The IDF has brought us here to demonstrate that, as far as they're concerned, their responsibility for delivering aid stops right here. But look at what happens in this UN footage as it tries to deliver that food. It's kids. It's children. Shots landing right in front of desperately hungry Palestinians. In this World Food Program video, one of their trucks is looted by people so crazed with hunger, they say, they'll do anything to get something to eat. Inside Gaza, there are still 20 living hostages who've been held for 667 days, including Rom Braslavsky and Eviatar David.

45:09Hamas released new propaganda footage of David looking so skeletal, his brother Eli fears he is on the brink of death. Hamas is using aviatar in one of the most horrific and calculated campaigns of cruelty imaginable. According to a recent poll, three out of four Israelis want the hostages freed in exchange for an end to this war.

45:39Margaret Brennan:That's our Deborah Pada reporting from Israel.

46:09Margaret Brennan:producer is Anne Hsu. This broadcast was directed by Shelley Schwartz. Face the Nation originates from CBS News in Washington. For more, we're online at facethenation.com and on YouTube. We're also rebroadcast on our CBS News 24-7 streaming network at 1230 on Sundays, and we're available through our apps, CBS News and Paramount Plus.